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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Adventures of Camp Ozark: Part 2

This looks like a beach vacation.
It's not. It's CAMP OZARK!
It's the sand volley ball court.
This is from Monday night. We had so much fun!
Emma has been charming people with her daredevil ways, and today spent hours on the water trampoline.
Heather, I tried the meaningful conversation while brushing her hair, in order to give a more authentic "Little House" feel to our cabin tonight, but she was a Cheetah, so we didn't get very far. I don't think there were ANY girls like Emma on "Little House."
This week is totally different from the past weeks we have come to Camp Ozark...we usually come in July when campers are here. This is Orientation week for the counselors. So there are no campers, only oodles of fun college students...who love kids...and there are only our kids and the permanent staff members' kids here. So our kids are FAMOUS. Jax is well known around the bumper boats for his schmack talk, and constant spraying of strangers. He's so precious! He watched closely today while Rusty and I did the ropes course and zip line, and yelled up to me "Mom, I love you! When you come down, can you hold me?" I love this boy.


Justus is that adorable little boy who signs. This has captured the heart of every beautiful college girl here. He has also learned to WHOOP and put his thumb up as a crowd-pleaser to the Aggies. I certainly didn't teach him that. We have to credit Bec-Bec (Becky who is here with us, having fun, and helping us out tremendously) with that one.
Unfortunately, Justus has been sick, and is running fever for almost four days now, and has a terrible sore throat. This has only limited his fun marginally. After we had dinner Monday night, they had a dance, and Justus got in the middle and did a little break dancing, while people gathered around and cheered. He was trying to show these white people how it's done.


Treston, quite the hit of the entire camp!
I seriously could have charged admission on this night, because we had dinner "on the grounds" outside, and we just stripped him down and let him go to town on some rice and fruit. It was the mess you might expect. But these cute college people do not see chubby babies covered with rice, in their ears, up their noses, everyday. They gathered around in large groups just to watch. Treston was unbothered. There was food present. That was all that mattered to him. When the food runs out, he starts yelling. This is a pic of his first ice cream. There was no way we were going to get away with having some and deny him! He's pretty easy-going, until it comes to food, as you can tell! The girls have lined up just to hold him, so we let a group take him while Rusty and I braved the ropes course and zip line today.

Other highlight: we went fishing last night. Does anyone remember the phantom fish that I caught last year, unwitnessed by people over the age of 5? Well, we all got lucky this year. Everyone of us caught a fish, and Rusty even caught a hook in the finger. Such are the dangers of fishing with kids. I got some very stereo-typical, adorable pictures of my kids holding up their fishes proudly before throwing them back. It was awesome!

By the way, thanks for the recommendations on reading! I am almost done with one of them, and ready to start another. I have enjoyed reading for hours and hours at night! It's been great.

We will be packing it up all too soon. I do miss all of you guys, and will see you soon. Pray for us, driving straight through on the way home (8 hours) with tired (and some sick) kids, and many valuable things precariously strapped to the top.

And yes, Ashley, we'll just squeeze you in next year! I think they expect us to keep bringing more and more kids each year, at this rate. I don't know where another one would sleep, but that wouldn't stop the Ingalls family, would it?

I'll keep you posted on further adventures. Love to all of you!

7 comments:

The Mosiers said...

Ah...the good ole camp days. You missed a crazy week in CS and Erin and I are awaiting your return so we can chat. I also can't wait till me, Nick, and the boys dig a HUGE hole during the beach vacation.

Anonymous said...

Oh how I love this family! I can not WAIT to see you all in 2 weeks! Looks like you had a GREAT TIME! I think next Christmas Rusty should build a bumper boats pond behind the house! What a great gift!!! =) Trampoline, bumper boats, you would never have to leave the house!! I am so clever!! Love you guys,
Jodi

Anonymous said...

Yea for fun times!!! The pictures in the sand made me smile and pretend for you guys that you were enjoying Mexico :) I hope Becky is enjoying a trip with the Bacaks cause its the BEST!! (although just the thought of a zip line scares me - haha!!) The kids are all getting SO big...Jax has grown up so much its crazy!!! Can't wait to see you guys in a month!

Hendrick Family said...

It did look like you were at the beach! It makes me want to go to the beach.

How many more days until you get home? From now on, I'm only coming to this blog to say, "Are you there yet?" There as in home! It misses you and so do we!

You will laugh at this...

Just today Anson said..."I thought we were supposed to be staying at Mrs. Jenn's house while they were on vacation." I told him that the plans changed since we had this great house to stay in for a couple of weeks...then a few minutes later he said, "Mom! Does Mrs. Jenn know you aren't staying in her house?"

I said yes..you knew.

Then a huge sigh of relief came out of his mouth and then he said, "Well good, I was hoping she wasn't wanting YOU to feed Disney."

He obviously knows I'm not much of an animal person. He would totally not put it past me to completely forget about someone's dog.

So funny. He was really feeling sorry for your family if you thought his non-animal loving mother was supposed to be taking care of your dog.

Heather

Jennifer Bacak said...

Sweet Anson. NO, good thing the house, the dog, the turtle, and the fish were all well-cared for by Amanda. Plus the baby birds that were in our tree that Emma was obsessed about Amanda checking in on EVERYDAY. Emma almost freaked out once this week because she thought maybe we forgot to tell Amanda to feed Happy Marco.
All is well, and we are home!!!
Home, sweet home, where the baby can cry himself back to sleep at night without waking anyone up.
(Those of you with 0-1 child may not understand that statement. Those with 2+ will.)
jenn

Lisa Smith said...

What a fun vacation! You have precious kids. Thanks for sharing their little personalities!

King Family said...

Jenn,

Hey. I have been reading your blog and wanted to say hi. It's been too long since we hung out. I am so glad you had fun at Camp Ozark. Does Rusty remember I was there with him in '96? In fact that's where I met him. I loved reading about your kids. Camp and kiddos just go together. Also, I completely understand about Trestin needing to cry himself to sleep. We were only gone 2 nights this past weekend and it was so frustrating to all be in one room! Let's hang out and swim soon.
staci